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Just started building my BA Honour Guard, and I am wondering how best to equip them? All Plasma? All Melta? All Flamer??? I manly play v Marines, Orks, and the odd time Eldar.
I have plenty of melta branched about my Assault squads, so i was thinking a rapid firery plasma death unit.

What does the dakka community think? How are BA Honour Guard best equiped??

Well, it depends. I play a DoA army with 2 HG units in 2000 pts.
If you face an armored enemy then go for meltas nothing else.
Otherwise, 2 meltas and 2 flamers are a good mix in an environment with horde armies.
Some swear that plasma guns provide the best bang for the buck, especially if you face some MCs.

You dont want ALL plasma as the overheat chance is pretty high and you dont really want your valuable honor guard units dying needlessly.

I like 2 Meltaguns and 2 flamers as this gives you great versitiliy.

I dunno about that death. Its a 1 in 6 chance to overheat with plasma and then a 2 in 6 chance to fail that armor save and then you still have FNP to fall back on. Those are pretty solid odds of not losing a guy to the overheats. With 8 plasma shots it comes out to something like .22 dead marines from overhead per turn. over 5 turns of rapid fire you approach the 1 result but YMMV. It does add a great platform to get a higher ROF out of that still threatens tanks, MCs, and heavy infantry.

Cheers,
~Volkan

Deathbysoup wrote:You dont want ALL plasma as the overheat chance is pretty high and you dont really want your valuable honor guard units dying needlessly.

I like 2 Meltaguns and 2 flamers as this gives you great versitiliy.

The HG has FnP thanks to the built-in chalice. Don't worry.

I've got two load outs in my army, magnetized.

One is a squad with:
Chapter banner
4 Hand Flamers
Powersword
Melta Bombs
(These guys are nasty against hordes and nasty in CC).

Or just 4 meltas, powerfist.
I find that although I have 10 meltas in 1.5k they are still awesome. Yes, plasma guns get more shots, but they cost 5 points more and you can't assault afterwards.

Obviously though, if you're not running an assaulty army then you don't need that ability.

Volkan wrote:I dunno about that death. Its a 1 in 6 chance to overheat with plasma and then a 2 in 6 chance to fail that armor save and then you still have FNP to fall back on. Those are pretty solid odds of not losing a guy to the overheats.

You have a 1/36 chance of losing a model due to overheating. Given the punch of PG, those are odds you can bet on.

Interesting!!!! 2 melta 2 Flamer seems to be the general consensus then?

I absolutely swear by my Quadplas honor guard. I have a friend who plays a Dual Lash list, and gunning down his Greater Demon with these guys is the only way I can break him.


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niallkissick wrote:Interesting!!!! 2 melta 2 Flamer seems to be the general consensus then?

I don't feel like this is a good combination, personally. You can get 2 flamers or 2 meltas in your basic Assault Squad. The point of being able to take 4 special weapons is to mass specialized firepower, not have half the unit's shooting be suboptimal versus a given target.

I'm voting for 4 plasma. Absolutely devastating!

Quadplas is something that I find exciting. Of course quad flamer is something I am excited about as well with a lot of the nids and orks I play against.

Or count them as quincombi-plas sternguard for less points in a drop pod: versatility, eat your heart out. Got a C'tan to kill-poison shots. Got a bunch of terminators to deal with-plasma away. How about kroot, eldar pathfinders or or catachans in cover-yup, we have dragonflame bolts for those too. PA marines-inferno bolts. Sternguard with the combi-plasma is a better way to count them as. Of course, I use my sternguard in pods with combi-meltas, but they are a suicide squad. This one might stick around better against infantry opponents. I tried the honor guard thing for BA, and I find it MUCH better to make them sternguard with combi-weapons. Like everything else though, YMMV

The honor guard are a free unit in terms of the FOC. Elite slots are too valuable with the Sanguinary Priest, Furioso, Termies, Chaplain etc.

That's why the honor guard are so awesome. I agree that sternguard are more flexible. But I want four guys who are committed to all plasma all the time!

The other thing to keep in mind about Honor Guard VS Sternguard is that 4 HG with jump packs can fire their plasma every turn (while alive) and can also move 12 inches to move on the the next target giving them an extra 6 inches of working range on the move. Also with the Jump Packs they get a reliable deepstrike without a secondary kill point.

Cheers,
~Volkan

The ability to not only take a plasma gun in a squad that resistant, but four of them is really something special. And, plasma guns are valuable in every situation I can think of. Take a 4 of.

I agree that their main strength is loading up on one special weapon.

That said, 1-2 MG, two PW & company banner is not too expensive, and remarkably choppy and fun. I faced that on Saturday and it put out a lot of pain in HtH for a small squad.

Once, I battled Nids and gave my HG (jump packs) four flamers.
This was absolutely devastating against small bugs.

So you would recommend jump packs rather than shove them in a rhino/raz/LR?

I will have to order more bits!

I'm doing a bit of a kit bash for my honour guard, I want them to look really blood angels like, basically mix and matching SG and DC kits!

I like the sound of four flamers, that could be lethal against my ork playing friend!!!

It's tough to say; transport vs. JP have their advantages and disadvantages. JP means one fewer KP, and means they can't lose their mobility, only their lives. Transport means they have some protection, and you can place the models exactly where you want them on disembarking for best range and to really maximize the templates. IME with my Chaos Chosen, the latter factor is a big deal with flamers.

I'd opt for jump packs.
I run two units in my DoA army at the 2000 pt level and they never disappointed me.
Target saturation and the built-in chalice help to keep them alive.

Yeah, context is another big important factor. If the rest of the army has lots of JPs, JPs make sense. If the army's mechanized, a transport makes more sense. Better not to have them stand out as a target.

I mainly run a mech list with razorbacks and a land raider for transports. Now that the stormraven is out i was thinking dual stormravens and drop pods.

I think i am going to have to improve my modelling skills and make the jump packs removable so i can field either.

Mannahnin wrote:Yeah, context is another big important factor. If the rest of the army has lots of JPs, JPs make sense. If the army's mechanized, a transport makes more sense. Better not to have them stand out as a target.

In fact, if the army is mech, I'd mount them in a Rhino with a Libby attached.

niallkissick wrote:I think i am going to have to improve my modelling skills and make the jump packs removable so i can field either.

http://www.amazingmagnets.com/sf-disc-magnets.aspx

thanks Mannahnin, i got some ordered! Just got to find some spare jump pack bits!!

I used to run 4*plasma, but after I realized that I killed more of my own models then enemy models over the games I played with them (I roll a LOT of 1s whenever I fire plasma), I decided that a shift in tactics was necessary.

Hell, I had a game where I lost over 500 points of models in my own turn because of plasma. My dice hate me that much.

Stoopid Dice!!! I have rarely used plasma, so i have yet to experience blowing myself up! My Space Wolf friend often loses a Grey Hunter or two due to the gets hot! rule!!!

On another note, i was able to get some fancy Death Company Jet Packs for my Honour Guard!

Happy times


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For a fiver i might add

I throw my vote in for the quad-plasmagun squadron. it puts out the firepower needed to thin down the more 'elite' units, save for th/ss terminators, and normally hits with enough consistency to be able to stunlock vehicles (excluding brutes like land raiders, of course)
These guys are worth every single point when they jump out of their razorback and gun down Dante, Mephiston, a pair of boradsides or obliterators etc.

I'm a little late to the party, but I'd say go with jump packs. If you can move them 12", you can probably move them from cover to cover and make them impossible to shoot at.

I run Banner, Blood champion and a melta gun. Has yet to fail me.